Stanley Kubrick's "Napoleon". The Greatest Movie Never Made

During the post-production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick began working on his next project, a biopic on Napoleon Bonaparte. The dramatic rise and fall of the French emperor made for a great story, but it was his mind that most interested Kubrick, who couldn’t grasp how a brilliant tactician could fall victim to his own irrational temptations—and with devastating consequences.

While working on the script, Kubrick read every book about Napoleon that he could obtain, consulted with...